Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

Are we having an epidemic of wind and wet this year?  We generally don't get 
too much wind up here, nor a lot of rain.  Mostly snow.  New Year's Eve was 
a real great way to bring in the new year!  We'd had rain for weeks (hey, 
other Rob, have you floated off to Hawaii yet?).  To the point where is was 
simply running off the ground and not soaking in at all!

Along come high swirling winds and down go the trees.  Not just those goofy 
Ponderosa pines, but some big Doug Firs.

First one was a pine and it took at the power poles at the end of our road. 
Then two more came down across the road.  Youngest and I were going to head 
into town but couldn't get out.  Hadn't been in the house 5 minutes when the 
Doug Fir next to our driveway came down RIGHT WHERE WE JUST DROVE in!  112'. 
Left a hole 22' across.  The roots on this thing were HUGE!  We had to get a 
logger out with his cat to move the thing!

Luckily we got all the dead trees down before the wind.  The resource guys 
are coming out tomorrow to chip all the limbing we did.

Now we're going to need a load of shale in here to fill in the pit!

We've only seen one coyote.  Tons of bear tracks.  Heard a bobcat.  We've 
seen a pair of fox a couple of times and you can hear them at night when 
they are hunting.  The neighbor a couple of houses down lost 2 foals to 
mountain lions.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 

> > Tonight the wind is still blowing steadily at at least 40 mph. We've had 
> > a
> > wind advisory all day, which was supposed to end at 6. Sundown generally
> > quiets things down, but it hasn't tonight. At least all the barn babies
> > are
> > snug, and it's so windy that the coyotes seem to have taken the night 
> > off.